Poking death with a stick, Part 2

In a previous post I have scored my first kill with the new Nestor doctrine. The very next day, just as I was hoping to get a second kill, all of a sudden I had a Vargur and two Rattlesnakes land and start shooting the defenseless tower with Phobos patrolling the high-sec exit.

Since Phobos has high-sec sealed off, I can't check the empire system name without getting noticed. I could just watch and do nothing, but where's fun in that? I convo the locals at the tower to see if they need help.

I talk with Orion Kirimitsu and invite him to my fleet. He tells me the name of the high-sec system and I try to get reinforcements from the Wormhole PVP channel. Unfortunately location was not ideal and I got not much interest. Locals also did not have any pvp ships available. The only thing they had were pve Gilas. They shoot missiles so it's still better then nothing. Going back and forth, making position bookmarks, I noticed that Phobos was not sitting on the wormhole anymore, but moved towards the tower which made wormhole to be on the edge of the bubble if warped from the right angle. It so happened that the outer planet and my safe spot was in perfect alignment. I had an idea!

The plan was to warp Nestors to the high-sec exit and land within close range. Set drone assist and tackle with my Proteus the Phobos and any other ships that warp to "save" him, hopefully landing in a bubble. In such case I could unleash pain while being relatively safe, sitting on the wormhole. Everything seemed perfect, except I somehow managed to decloak my Proteus. Thankfully I noticed being targeted and approached by the dictor in time and managed to warp away since I was at range. While I did avoid the embarrassing strategic cruiser loss, the surprise attack has been compromised. I still have no idea how the hell did that happen. As expected, just before I enter warp, I see enemy fleet land on the bubble. It was interesting to see what they will do. Will they bail or will they continue with the tower bash? Did they get my name or do they think I'm just one of the locals? I watch the Vargur and the Rattlesnakes go back to the tower as if nothing happened. I guess they don't feel very threatened. Except now I have many more ships shooting the tower, but I decide to continue with my original plan regardless.

This can get very dangerous, but as I mentioned earlier, I felt in a gambling mood. I will decloak with Proteus first, get the aggro from Phobos, land with Nestors, approach the wormhole, setup the spider tank and assists and wait for ships to land at the edge of the bubble. Surprisingly, plan goes almost as I anticipated. Proteus gets the aggro, Nestors land just shortly after, chain gets setup and Phobos was breaking.

I say almost, because none of the hostile ships were landing. Phobos slowboated back to the wormhole and jumped out. D-scan was clear so others,  presumably, warped back to their home system. Now any sane person would just call it a day. Plan was good and perhaps would have worked if I did not mess up my cloak earlier and/or not warped in my Nestor fleet so early. I knew locals were bored enough to shoot the tower and I was bored too. I was hugging that high-sec exit like my life depended on it. And it did.

I was waiting for the enemy fleet to start making moves. Maybe they will make a mistake. My hope was to catch the Phobos trying to make a run for it or another ship trying to bait me leaving the safety of the wormhole. And bait they did. At first I had a lone Proteus appear at 70km and then at 30km. When that did not work it was quiet for a moment. "I should be ok, unless they bring in a bumping ship", - I thought to myself. Soon I hear an activation sound and Phobos appears.

I tackle him and three sets of Ogres immediately follow the Proteus lead. In just a matter of seconds, a huge fleet lands on grid. I see Guardians, t3s, battleships. A scary fleet, but I ignore it. Phobos was breaking down and maybe I will just be able to kill it and jump out. While I was busy locking with each Nestor to setup neuts, something strange happened. I couldn't lock Phobos anymore. He was 90km away. Did he MJD away? How? No, that's not it. My Proteus and main Nestor still has him scrambled. So why the fuck two of my Nestors are almost 100km away? Ohhhhh.

The command destroyers. I just got my ass handed. I completely forgot about them. Shutting myself off in wormholes, I barely follow with the changes in EVE anymore. I knew about the new ships, but completely took them out of equation when evaluation the "worst case" scenarios. By multiboxing 4 accounts I was losing concentration and mind was getting chaotic. The Nestor's tank was breaking, overview full of hostile ships, broken cap chain, it was time to go into damage control mode and see what I can salvage of this situation.

I jump out my Proteus and Nestor to high-sec in case I get micro jumped out again or bumped. I swap to remaining two Nestors 100km off the wormhole and notice one of them does not have any disruptor on him. Without thinking much, I initiate warp to the best positioned celestial for a quick bounce. Second Nestor I write off and eject to save the pod. It does not have any expensive implants, but having full overview of hostiles, my instincts were telling me there is no way out with my ship intact so no reason to lose the pod too. I completely ignore the fact that I am tackled only by a destroyer with Guardians sitting 100km away. Two sets of Ogres and 4 heavy neuts could have probably popped that ship in no time, leaving me a clear way to run. But my mind was not clear anymore due to encountering something unexpected. I let my primal instincts take over and ran for my life.

In the end, I manage to evacuate two Nestors, leaving one as a reward for the hostiles. Great job on bringing command destroyers. I would say the fleet that they brought was over the top, but I do not believe in overkill. If I was in their shoes, I would have done the same. That doesn't mean I can't tease about it.

Big problem with multiboxing is that you just can't pay attention to detail. No matter how experienced you are. I was too focused on locking ships with each of my Nestor to set the cap neutralizers. I did not recognize a command destroyer with a quick glimpse at the overview. It's first time I saw that ship on grid and my eye did not distinguish Magus from Magnus. Nevertheless, I was happy to get off so easy. The longer I waited, the more I knew there will be less and less chance I come out as a winner. Enemy had time to evaluate, organize and adapt to current situation and they did exactly that. So the bright side of the story? I had quite a lot of excitement and didn't lose all of my fleet. Furthermore, Nestor got taken and not destroyed. Hopefully it will get a chance to participate in a pvp fleet and not get sold in Jita.